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| Monday, October 06, 2008 |
| Google Chrome Ad on BillBoard - Courtesy Ramdev Baba |
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Internet Outsider, Henry Blodget thinks that Google's Ad Revenues are slowing down and hence the company is considering advertising about its products outdoors / billboards in the US.
However, the scenario Far East is completely different. Google is probably one of the most admired consumer brand names. Advertising agencies are now using it to promote their Events and Products. This time, it is none other than India's most famous Yoga Guru - Ramdev Baba. Have a look at this billboard in Delhi trying to catch attention of people by comparing the zeal with which consumers are switching to an efficient browsing experience with Google's Chrome browser and yet reluctant to learn Yoga ;-)
 While Indians embrace Google and its products, the company gets a free advertisement ride :-) |
Published on Monday, October 06, 2008 at 1:35 PM  |
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| Monday, September 15, 2008 |
| Airtel plans entry into IT sector |
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Telecom sector major Bharti Airtel is planning its foray into the information technology (IT) business by developing software applications for small and medium businesses (SMBs) and enterprises on a pay-per-use or software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.
The company is currently in talks with large software vendors such as Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Google and Jamcracker to develop the required applications. It already has a tie up with Microsoft to offers hosted messaging and collaboration solutions for SMBs.
The private sector telecom major is planning to play the role of "CIO in the cloud" for the SMBs by offering the CIO services on a virtual basis. |
| Published on Monday, September 15, 2008 at 12:19 PM |
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| Tuesday, September 09, 2008 |
| Online Advertising - Exponential Growth |
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The Online Advertising market in India is set for an explosive growth within the next 3 years. With the Government striving hard to reach broadband targets and adding more Indians online, brands, portals, services etc are all joining the bandwagon.
The Online Advertising market is set to touch Rs 2,500 core [$550 mn] in the next 3 years accounting for 6.8% of the entire advertising market in India. Currently it is 2.43% of the entire ad spend in the industry.
Banner is expected to be the next big thing in the online industry and is expected to touch Rs 350 crore by next year according to Ozone Media. The platform is drawing companies from sectors as diverse as Auto, FMCG, Finance education etc. |
| Published on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 at 8:23 PM |
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| Saturday, July 19, 2008 |
| Google's Loss is Yahoo's Gain |
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June-2008, was a totally different month when we saw Google actually shed search market share by 0.3% which was grabbed by rival Yahoo!. [If comScore data can be believed,we don't]. On the other hand Redmond giants Search Marketing gimmick of cash back has taken off as the company gained 0.7% in June-08.
The Big 3 search companies on the Internet approximately have the following market share,
Google - 61.5%
Yahoo - 20.9%
Microsoft - 9.2%
Microsoft is trying to gain search market share by all means. One of the easier methods employed by the company is to use MSN Search in Internet Explorer when a wrong URL address is typed or just a phrase is typed. |
| Published on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 8:10 PM |
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| Friday, June 06, 2008 |
| Education Infotainment Portals - Big Business in India |
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 Social Networks in India like BharatStudent and MingleBox which started off to connect the Indian Youth have included the most sought after modules to attract more individuals to their platform - Education Information hence changing the theme of their portals to Education Infotainment from mere Entertainment and Social Connection.
Education - The Big Bucks Business:
Apart from the Government spending of $21bn in the XIth plan, many private colleges and universities have sprung up as India transforms itself into the knowledge capital of the world. In our view, with the booming private education market in India likely to be even more aggressive, for competitive reasons, in advertising to attract students, information portals such as Shiksha are positioning themselves to capture a growing portion of this spend in the coming years when budgets move online. Lets have a look ate few of the popular ones.
EducationTimes.Com
Part of the Times of India Group, the website leverages the group's education-related content in its various properties and mainly offers information on postsecondary education as well as for post-graduation (e.g. job search tips, executive education, etc.).
MingleBox:
Popular Social Network now offering FREE online tests for CET-K/COMEDK. Guidance for IIT-JEE, BITS and other related services.
BharatStudent:
Helping graduates look for higher education in India, US, UK and Australia. Comprehensive database of colleges and guidance and tutorials on necessary qualifying exams.
PagalGuy.com
Pagalguy.com is an education portal specifically targeting students attending and interested in attending business school in India.
National Network of Education:
Founded by Pragati Infosoft Private Ltd, the company already runs three very popular and useful portals. IndiaEducation, IndiaEduNews and ExamResults
StudyPlaces.Com
Aims to be a comprehensive resource center for students planning for postsecondary education (including study abroad), as well as entering the workforce. This portal was founded by Mr. Amitabh Nagpal, and is jointly funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB); Sherpalo Ventures and Info Edge (Info Edge invested US$1m for a minority stake)
Shiksha.Com
A comprehensive information portal for students for various aspects of their education needs, but mainly in postsecondary education and study abroad, to attract student traffic.
Currently, the revenue model is largely advertising-based in the form of brand ads and classified listings. However, going forward, they may turn out into paid services. An opportunity worth looking at is to develop fantastic content and port them as Paid Applications on these networks as well as FaceBook and Orkut :-) |
| Published on Friday, June 06, 2008 at 12:01 AM |
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| Thursday, May 22, 2008 |
| Social Networks Monetization - Unimpressive |
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 Social Networks will have an uphill task monetizing its users' generated content. According to an estimate by eMarketer, world wide social network ad spending by advertisers will be mere $ 2 bn in 2008 [Google's Net Profit for one quarter]. Gone are those days of empty promises by Coke sponsoring your college theme party etc.
Many of these networks are still trying to find out what sort of Advertising works better. Coming back to India, 7 of the 20 networks operational are relying on Google's Adsense for monetization and survival. Google will now be forced to develop a competing platform to monetize Social Networks since not many advertisers are keen on displaying their ads on these sites. This is evident from the option given to Google's Advertiser in Adwords user interface as shown on your left. |
| Published on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 12:46 AM |
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| Wednesday, May 21, 2008 |
| Hindustan Times - Migrating from Print to Internet |
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 Times Group was the first to realize the growth of Internet and the influence it will have on the society and impact on its bottom line. Hindustan Times realized it only lately and is venturing into the Web world now. It already has DesiMartini a Web 2.0 company in its folio though that social network is not doing well and still struggling to take off.
Today HTMedia announced that their online version of newspaper[ HindustanTimes.com] has roughly 10 million page views / month. The company which launched Job Search site, Shine.com earlier this month now plans to launch verticals - Real Estate and Indian Matrimony [Shaadi]. Already we see HTClassifieds hosting Real Estate and Matrimony under it.
With merely 5% of the Indians having access to the Internet, it is still a long way that Internet becomes the main stream media in India. |
| Published on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 12:12 PM |
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| Wednesday, May 07, 2008 |
| Yahoo + McAfee copying Google + Websense |
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 Web 2.0 leading edge company, Google together with Websense had released safe search in Q3-2007. Its an effort to filter the evil sites on the web. Just a while ago, Yahoo! on its blog has unveiled a similar product "SearchScan".
We decide to test and compare both of the services. Search for "free screensaver" on SearchScan and you should get seraline.com as one of the search results on the first page marked as Warning: Dangerous Downloads. However, search for seraline.com and Google doesn't flag this site.
So in such a test case whom do you trust ? Trust Google or Trust Yahoo! ? |
| Published on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 at 1:00 AM |
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